“Our definition of missing people are those who disappeared in military operations, terrorist attacks or those who are reported kidnapped but have not appeared yet,” Maj. Farouk Al-Araji, office manager of the Chief Commander of Iraq’s Military Command, told a news conference in Baghdad on 25 April.

“The families have to submit the documents that prove the incident [that led to their disappearance] is registered in the police records, a picture of the missing [person] and phone number to the offices of security forces in all provinces starting from May 2,” Al-Araji added.The families will have 15 days to submit all the required documents, he added.

The government committee includes representatives from the ministries of defence, interior, national security, health, justice and human rights, in addition to intelligence services and anti-terrorism forces.

According to the human rights ministry, 14,025 people have been registered missing since 2003 and only seven have been found yet in morgues. Kamil Arkan, the ministry’s representative on the committee, said the number is believed to be higher because many cases went unreported.

In April 2011 Iraq’s parliament ended one of the main barriers to fighting corruption in the country. That is Article 136B of the Iraqi Criminal Code. The article allows ministers to stop investigations, and has been used more and more in recent times. It’s yet to be seen whether this is part of a real effort to counter the widespread corruption in the country, or just another cosmetic move meant to look like the government is doing something.

On April 18, 2011 Iraq’s parliament ended Article 136B of the Iraqi Criminal Code. The article allows ministers and other top officials to end investigations of their own offices. In the first half of 2010, Article 136B was used 95 times. That was more than all of 2009 when it was employed 54 times. A recent example of its use was when former Interior Minister Jawad Bolani used 136B to stop the inspector general of his own ministry from looking into the purchase of fake bomb detectors. Although the article is employed in only a relatively few of the hundreds of investigations going on within Iraq each year, it does show the country’s top officials personal interest in blocking corruption cases.

This is the third time that the government has rescinded Article 136B. The previous times, it was eventually brought back. That’s because there is no real will within Baghdad to address this pressing issue. Many of the ministers run their offices like personal fiefs to dish out jobs to their friends, family, and followers. Nepotism and patronage leads to stealing and other nefarious practices. Article 136B has allowed these practices to continue with the personal protection of top officials. Baghdad is currently under pressure from the streets to deal with corruption. That was probably a driving factor behind 136B’s repeal. The authorities now have to use this new freedom to prosecute and convict top criminals, something that has never happened since 2003, otherwise this move is simply window dressing meant to appease the public rather than bring about any real change.

With the attack Monday morning on the Bab al-Azizyah complex in Tripoli, the US-NATO war on Libya has entered a criminal new phase that incorporates the policy of state-organized assassination.

Two large precision-guided bombs reduced buildings in the complex to rubble. Libyan officials reported three people killed and 45 wounded, 15 of them critically.

This was the third such attack on the complex where Libya's Colonel Muammar Gaddafi lives and works. The compound was hit by a cruise missile fired from a British submarine on March 20, the second day of the US-NATO assault, and again on April 23, when warplanes struck a parking lot just outside of Bab al-Azizyah that reportedly was above an underground bunker.

With each strike, the objective is ever more naked: the murder of Gaddafi and members of his family.

The building struck on Monday housed the Libyan leaders offices and library and a meeting room where earlier this month he had held talks with South African President Jacob Zuma and other African leaders on an African Union proposal for a ceasefire in Libya's ongoing civil war. The proposal was quickly quashed by the US-NATO alliance and the so-called rebels who are being backed by the US and Europe.

Despite claiming legitimacy for their military actions on the basis of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1973, which authorizes "all necessary measures" to protect civilians, Washington, London and Paris have made no secret of the fact that their real aim is "regime change," i.e., the imposition of a puppet government that will be more subservient to their interests (and those of the energy conglomerates) than the Gaddafi regime. To that end, they are prepared to carry out whatever bloodletting is required.

After five weeks of bombing, and with the US military command claiming to have "attrited"in plain English, slaughteredup to 40 percent of the military forces loyal to Gaddafi, they appear no closer to realizing their aim. The "rebels," a fractious coalition of ex-Gaddafi officials, aging CIA "assets" and Islamists, have proven wholly incapable of advancing west toward Tripoli. Moreover, the openly stated hopes of the imperialist powers that the bombs and missiles dropped on Tripoli would trigger a palace coup resulting in Gaddafi's ouster have gone unanswered.

Last week, the top US uniformed military commander, Adm. Mike Mullen, warned that the US-led intervention in Libya was "moving towards stalemate."

The Obama administration and its European accomplices, increasingly frustrated by the failure of their tactics, are not willing to accept such an outcome. This is what has placed the policy of assassination at the center of their calculations.

Mullen's warning was accompanied by the announcement that armed US Predator drones have been deployed over Libya. The pilotless warplanes have been employed with ever growing frequency by the Obama administration to carry out its dirty war against the population on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. Pakistans Conflict Monitoring Center in Islamabad has documented 2,200 civilian deaths over the past five years from drone attacks.

The CIA and its apologists defend the drone attacks as remote control extrajudicial executions of "terrorists," simply dismissing evidence of the horrific civilian death toll. Now, these same methods are being employed in Libya under the pretext of protecting civilian lives.

Meanwhile, within official Washington, there has been a steady drumbeat for Gaddafis assassination, with leading US senators going on television talk shows and sounding as if they had cribbed their remarks from the script of "The Godfather."

Thus, one program had Senator Lindsey Graham, a member of the Senate Armed Services committee demanding that the US-led intervention "cut the head of the snake off" and urging, in reference to Gaddafi, "Let's get this guy gone."

What is striking is that such language evokes not a hint of disagreement, much less protest, from within the US political establishment and the corporate-controlled media.

One would hardly guess that such methods mark a fateful shift from what had long been considered essential tenets of international law. While the assassination of foreign rulers as a tool of statecraft was well known in the Middle Ages, from the 18th century and the dawn of the bourgeois revolutions it was regarded as beyond the pale.

There were, of course, wholly pragmatic considerations, among them the fear of "chickens coming home to roost," with the resort to assassination by leaders of major powers legitimizing the practice and creating the conditions for someone to murder them as well. There was also the calculation by those with the worlds more powerful militaries that the use of assassination would tend to level the playing field with their less well-armed rivals.

But there were also, particularly in the history of the United States, other arguments, rooted in principles of democracy.

Thomas Jefferson in a 1789 letter to James Madison described assassination as one of the "legitimate principles in the dark ages which intervened between ancient and modern civilizations, but exploded and was held in just horror in the eighteenth century."

The US Armys code of conduct signed by Abraham Lincoln at the height of the Civil War in 1863 warned that "civilized nations look with horror upon" the method of assassinating ones enemies, regarding such practices as "relapses into barbarism."

This prevailing attitude toward assassinationdefined as "treacherous killing"was written into the international laws of war adopted at the Hague Convention of 1907 and has been continued in largely the same form in subsequent treaties and conventions.

As recently as 1976, the Church Committee, which conducted the US Senate investigations into the CIA's organization of assassination plots against world leaders ranging from Cuba's Fidel Castro to Patrice Lumumba of the Congo, concluded that this bloody practice "violates moral precepts fundamental to our way of life [and] traditional American notions of fair play."

Today, the outlook expressed in the committee's reports seems, in the context of official discourse in Washington, as anachronistic as if it had been written in the 18th century.

After nearly a decade of the so-called "war on terror," begun by Bush and escalated under Obama, assassination together with wars of aggression, torture, extraordinary rendition, detention without charges has become just one more accepted tool of American foreign policy.

Indeed, the executive order issued in the wake of the Church Committee probe that barred US-sponsored assassinations was overridden by the Bush administration in the name of eliminating alleged terroristsa right to kill that has been extended under the Obama administration to US citizens. Now, the case is being made that assassination is a legitimate tool for pursuing "humanitarian" missions or whatever other pretext is invented for imperialist looting.

The ongoing war in Libya marks a further escalation in the criminalization of the American ruling elite, which extols the methods of murder and thuggery to achieve its aims abroad while relying on financial swindling, political fraud and state intimidation to enforce its interests at home.

Its open embrace of assassination stands as a stark warning. There is no section of the financial and corporate oligarchy that rules the United States that maintains the slightest adherence to democratic principles. Under conditions of an unrelenting crisis of the world capitalist system, combined with an unprecedented polarization between its obscene accumulation of wealth and the increasingly desperate conditions facing masses of workers, it is compelled to defend its class rule through the use of unrestrained violence.

The struggle against war and the fight against the increasingly grave threats to democratic rights within the US itself can be waged only through the independent political mobilization of the working class in its own party, fighting for workers power and the socialist transformation of society.

businesses and organic agricultural organizations, the Public Patent Foundation (PUBPAT) filed suit in March 2010 against Monsanto Company to challenge the chemical giant's patents on genetically modified seed

2. From ISD endorser and farmer Morgana Washington:
"With any luck, we will be putting in our first seeds on the 26th. The weather here in upstate NY has been cruel as far as seed setting is concerned. But we are going to do it on the 26th, as the temp.'s seem to be stabilizing enough for the ground temp. to come up in our cold frame. Then we will lay out our NEW garden from which we hope to mostly feed ourselves in 2011. We are using organic and heirloom seeds as a thumbing of the nose to the eco-terrorist corporatocracies like Monsanto, Syngen et al.
Our only worries are how much radionuclides the plants will absorb, but since gardening under cover is not an option for us, we will accept the risks to ourselves and eat our own food.

Happy planting everyone!" Morgana

3. Since April 18, we have been phoning women, farmers, agriculture experts and activists in India and Iraq to alert them

about International Seed Day (ISD), its mission, the phenomena of seed patenting and genetically modified seeds (GMS). Bringing

awareness to the public and forming an international committee of lawyers, scientists, farmers, journalists and activists that collectively alert, exchange information, take action, protest and defend against the monopoly and bio piracy of the agribusiness corporations is essential and long overdue.

Again

Merry Seed Day

We Love to Hear From You!

Institute of Near Eastern & African Studies (INEAS) is a 501(c)(3) educational and cultural organization geared to educate the public and inform the media on issues related to Africa and Asia. Located in Cambridge, MA, since 1994. Find out more at our website http://www.ineas.org/
and our Youtube channel http://www.youtube.com/user/INEAS

lundi 25 avril 2011

BAGHDAD — More than 14,000 people have disappeared in Iraq since 2003, an official said on Monday, revealing for the first time the numbers who have gone missing in the violent aftermath of the US-led invasion.

"We have registered the names of 14,025 people who have gone missing since 2003," Arkan Kamel, an official at the human rights ministry, told a news conference in Baghdad.

"Until now, we have only found seven from the registered names at the morgues," he added.

Kamel is on a committee that officials said will start accepting requests from families who wish to enquire about missing relatives. Officials said the process would remain open for 15 days.

The invasion unleashed a violent Al-Qaeda insurgency and sectarian Shiite-Sunni violence, which peaked in 2006 and 2007, when tens of thousands of people were killed.

Random violence and kidnappings were also rampant. The number of violent incidents has plunged since then, but bombings and abductions are still common.

"Missing persons are those who disappeared during war operations, explosions and terrorism attacks," said Farouk al-Araji, who heads the military section at the prime minister's office.

"The committee will collect information about the missing to answer all questions about them," he told reporters.

Among those whose fate remains unknown is Salah Jali, an administrator with Agence France-Presse who has been missing since April 2006.

The committee comprises members of the Judicial Council and the ministries of justice, interior, human rights, national security and intelligence.

Turkish Airlines has launched direct Istanbul-Arbil flights, the latest sign of the developing relations between Turkey and the Regional Kurdish Administration in northern Iraq.

Turkish Finance Minister Mehmet Şimşek welcomed Iraqi Kurds at a ceremony in Arbil, saying in Kurdish, ‘We have been brothers for a thousand years. No one can destroy this' 'I have brought you our prime minister’s greetings,' Şimşek said in Kurdish. AA photo Northern Iraq, on what was once one of the most disputed Turkish borders, is closer to Turkey than ever in both economic and political terms.

Speaking in Kurdish during a visit Thursday, the Turkish finance minister reiterated the ruling government’s support fro the Iraqi Kurdish region. Turkey's national air carrier’s launch of direct flights to Arbil, an Iraqi Kurdish city, on Thursday, added to close political ties between the parties that were cemented by recent visits from Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu to the region.

Turkish Finance Minister Mehmet Şimşek’s opening speech marked the ceremony in Arbil to celebrate the new line between Turkey and the city. "I have brought you our prime minister’s greetings,” Şimşek said in Kurdish. “Is it crucial for us for here to develop and live in peace.” Until a few years ago, it was unthinkable for a Turkish minister to speak in Kurdish in an official capacity. Şimşek spoke at the Arbil International Airport, a facility built by Turkish Cengiz Construction and opened by Erdoğan two weeks ago.

“In recent years, we have been developing our relations with neighboring countries based on a policy of zero-problem and through strong cooperation as well as more investments. Turkish Airlines’ flights to Arbil are a physical manifestation of the existing ties between the hearts of the Turks and Iraqis.

Hopefully, flights will make great contributions to trade, investment and cooperation between our peoples.” Ending his words in Kurdish, Şimşek said, “We have been brothers for a thousand years. No one can destroy this brotherhood.” Erdoğan, accompanied by several Cabinet ministers, visited Arbil earlier in March, where he met with Masoud Barzani, the head of the Regional Kurdish Administration, and became the first Turkish prime minister to visit the city.

In November, Davutoğlu visited the city in a bid to support the efforts to found a government in Iraq. Undersecretary of the Turkish Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources Metin Kılcı, Turkish Airlines Chairman Hamdi Topçu and a group of Turkish businesspeople were on the very first Turkish Airlines plane to Arbil.

Under the flight schedule, Turkish Airlines, also known as THY, will fly from Istanbul to Arbil on Tuesday and Saturday and from Erbil to Istanbul on Wednesday and Sunday

dimanche 10 avril 2011

In the northern Iraqi city of Sulaimaniyah, a Kurdish journalist's car exploded outside his house early in the morning while he was sleep. A local policeman said it appeared to be a deliberate attack on Suran Omar, 33, who has been a critic of the semiautonomous Kurdish government's rule.

Nobody was hurt in the blast, said the policeman, who also spoke on condition of anonymity. Omar said he was not cowed. Their message of threat is received," he said. "It is a deed of cowards, and I will continue my activities."

jeudi 7 avril 2011

Recently terrorist organizations in Mosul have been acting more like European criminal mafias, going into business for themselves and extorting money from everyone, from government departments to vegetable sellers. His children are safe and Ahmad al-Taei praises God "a thousand times" for that.

The Mosul businessman sacrificed most of his wealth to save both children after they were kidnapped by an armed group. The grateful father preferred not to disclose the exact amount he paid to have his two sons released. He will only say that it was in the tens of thousands of US dollars. “Many rich people in Mosul have been blackmailed by terrorist organizations in different ways,” al-Taei said, “as they attempt to collect money following the loss of external sources of support.”

There is no doubt that over the past two years, local contractors – everyone from the owners of construction companies to plumbing services - in Mosul have become a major source of income for Iraqi terrorist organizations. Nobody wants to talk about it openly – in fact, most of those interviewed for this story only spoke to NIQASH on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals from terrorist groups.

But according to one local analyst, the groups are evolving from religious crusaders into criminal mafias and even emulating the contracting businesses themselves. The people of Mosul, capital of the northern Iraqi province of Ninawa with close to two million inhabitants, can all remember the day that the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI), an umbrella organization that includes al-Qaeda and other militant groups, announced that it had taken control of the city’s institutions. The only exception was the Provincial Council building, which was protected by US forces.

It was Nov 11, 2005 and members of the ISI managed to dispel local police and armed forces after destroying police stations and the homes of police officers. They also terrorized the city, targeting minorities and imposing strict religious rules on its citizens. As one local contractor told NIQASH: “Since 2005, the ISI al-Qaeda organization has allowed us to work.

But only on the condition that they get a percentage of each project’s budget.” Another local contractor estimates that, “at the time, the percentage being paid to the [ISI] members was 10 percent on each project.” In May 2008 a military campaign, Operation Umm al-Rabiain (the name, mother of two springs, is the city of Mosul’s nickname) was launched by the Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. The campaign’s aim was to push al-Qaeda back out of the city and it had a significant impact on the overt presence of terrorist groups in the city.

But, as a contractor explained, the groups simply went underground and this meant that pressure on locals was applied in different ways. “Instead of targeting homes and businesses with explosive devices, al-Qaeda started kidnapping and assassinating,” the contractor said. According to a number of businessmen that NIQASH has spoken to in the area, the percentage of each budget that al-Qaeda now claims from each project has fallen to around 6 percent.

The decline in al-Qaeda’s income can be partially attributed to the increase in the presence of security services. But it is also because many contractors cannot afford to pay such high percentages. As one told NIQASH, “many contractors are more reluctant to work because of the losses they are incurring.” It’s impossible to hide your budgets, he explained. “Because they [the ISI] now have a strong presence in government departments and armed groups know about every aspect of projects that have been tendered out.

So it becomes difficult not to pay them their share.” One engineer who supervises a number of projects, who has been kidnapped by ISI members in the past, explained that a company he works for “often uses poor construction materials to compensate for any losses incurred when they are eventually obliged to pay these organizations. If they didn’t do this,” he said, “the company wouldn’t be able to finish the project.”

Along similar lines, the University of Mosul, one of the largest educational institutions in the Middle East, has also inadvertently become a major source of funding for al-Qaeda. According to a professor there, who also requested anonymity, this is due to the number of large construction projects at the university over the last three years from which the terrorist groups make money in two ways.

“Members of al-Qaeda receive money from the projects that are being implemented inside the university,” the professor said. “The organization has its own construction companies. It participates in the reconstruction efforts under different names.”

The mafia-like extortion does not end there either. According to a number of state employees interviewed by NIQASH, most of the provincial government departments in Ninawa are also victims of some kind of extortion or blackmail, particularly those departments involved in oil, electricity, trade, housing and reconstruction as well as factories, social welfare and educational networks. Off the record, officials are well aware of the issue, saying they realise that money allocated for public services ends up in the pockets of armed groups.

Judge Abdul-Raheem al-Uqaili, the head of the Public Integrity Commission in Iraq, an independent body with offices around Iraq that investigates corruption within the Iraqi government, agreed that: “Corruption is one of the very important sources of financing for terrorist acts.” According to a police source in Ninawa, who also spoke to NIQASH on condition of anonymity: "The terrorist groups that take extortion money are the so-called Islamic State of Iraq. [This organization] gets the lion's share, more than 90 percent.

The rest of the money is distributed among other organizations such as Ansar al-Islam.” The latter, which is another group with a more radical interpretation of Islam, also collects money from the owners of local generators and pharmacies, the source noted, adding that, “this group recently asked some pharmacists to pay the ransom amount for six months in advance.”

The gathering of funds goes all the way from top to bottom: Abdallah Ghadeer, owner of a business trading in fruit and vegetables tells a similar story. “The ISI takes between US$100 and US$200 for every big truck of fruit and vegetables that comes in from Syria, Turkey or Iran,” Ghadeer said. “The importers pay these amounts to protect themselves against al-Qaeda, which threatens revenge if they don’t pay.”

The “tax” that terrorist groups levy on businesses in Mosul is common knowledge among locals – even though most won’t talk about it openly for fear of reprisals. The Mosul authorities don’t like to talk about it much either. Colonel Khalid Abdul Sattar, a spokesperson for the local security forces at the Ninawa Operations Command, preferred not to give a statement to NIQASH on this subject. He did not explain why.

Other local government officials that NIQASH approached reacted similarly. The one recent exception to this occurred a few months ago, when local security forces arrested a number of “enforcers”, individuals that specialize in the collection of ransoms or taxes from gas station owners as well as a group of civilians and government officials who were also involved. Only Abdul-Rahim al-Shammari, head of the Security and Defence Committee at the Ninawa provincial council was explicit about the existence and scale of extortion in the area.

He admitted that: “this phenomenon has become widespread and we have received numerous complaints from citizens who have been blackmailed by terrorists.” Part of the reason for the widespread nature of the extortion practices is the security forces’ lack of intelligence on the subject, Al-Shammari said. As extortion by terrorist groups becomes more prevalent, political analyst Majdi al-Abdali, believes that locals are becoming more acquiescent. “There is a growing tendency among members of society to accept the culture of paying money in order to avoid [violent] acts and killing and in order to maintain certain positions or jobs,” Al-Abdali said.

According to him, this sort of extortion is now routine for a large number of wealthier people. And he describes members of the groups responsible for the extortion as “ghosts” in the society. “They have false names and they constantly change their identity cards or use forged ones,” al-Abdali explained. In fact, al-Abdali continued, "these groups have no specific political ambition. From Jihadi movements, they have become criminal mafias, committing murder and theft to make money.

This rings especially true once you become aware that most of those who have joined these organizations are unemployed or ex-offenders." Meanwhile another provincial official, who, once again, preferred not to be named, has a further theory. He believes that one of the reasons for the decline in violence in Mosul is the direct involvement of the ISI and al-Qaeda in construction and trade in the area.

He pointed out that "through holding companies which are actually owned by terrorist organizations, al-Qaeda is now taking direct part in reconstruction projects that yield mouth-wateringly, high profits. They are busy making profits and they are only pressuring those who do not pay and punishing them.”

mercredi 6 avril 2011

Mr. Mimur, the council member who is an ethnic Turkmen, was in his second-floor office with the door closed when the attack began. Like many politicians in Iraq, he was wearing a pistol.

“I will go to the Turkmen dog,” he said he heard one of the gunmen say.

Mr. Mimur said he grabbed his Browning pistol from his left hip, opened the door and fired off round after round until he ran out of bullets. “So I decided to save myself,” he said. “I had no choice but to jump from my window.”

TIKRIT, Iraq — The people in the offices waited to die as the gunmen, wearing police uniforms and suicide vests, went door to door, tossing hand grenades and spraying gunfire. Days later, the provincial council headquarters here was a charnel house of smeared blood and burned flesh.

The New York Times

Nearly 60 died and more than 90 were wounded in Tikrit. “They killed eight here,” said Niyazi Mimur, a council member, as he stood in the office of a dead colleague. In another room he pointed at a bullet hole on a red and gold armchair and blood spatters on the wall. “They killed one here.” And on he went through the three-story building.

Nearly 60 died and more than 90 were wounded in last Tuesday’s brazen attack, which turned into a hostage standoff until Iraqi security forces retook the building. While violence in Iraq has ebbed in recent years, the assault on the provincial council in Saddam Hussein’s hometown was a stark reminder of what this country’s nascent democracy is up against: a stubborn insurgency and an army and police force that still have glaring deficiencies and suspect loyalties.

Those forces have been trained by an American military that is scheduled to leave the country at the end of the year and whose mission these days is mainly to advise and assist the Iraqis.

In Tikrit, local officials complained that the Americans did not do enough to help retake the building. After three days of mourning, in which a curfew and vehicle ban were imposed and shops and schools were shuttered, the other familiar ritual of Iraqi life began in Tikrit: processing grief through politics and recriminations.

“We were expecting something to happen, but not this big,” said Noor al-Samari, a member of Parliament from Salahuddin Province, which includes Tikrit. “The security forces are very weak.” An interview with Mr. Samari on Sunday was cut short after he received a call summoning him and local security officials to Baghdad to appear before a parliamentary committee investigating the attack. Echoing several local leaders, he was highly critical of American forces for not being directly involved in the fight.

“They were close by but didn’t do anything,” he said. It is unclear if greater involvement by American soldiers — who have done their share of fighting over the last eight years and still die here, as two did on Saturday from enemy fire — would have altered the outcome. American forces responded initially before falling back to observe.

Whether the Americans did enough or not, Iraqi forces will soon be on their own. Without a political deal to keep the United States military here, as many among the military ranks of both sides would like, all forces are scheduled to leave by 2012. “I always say that the Iraqi security forces should be depending on themselves in these kinds of operations because the U.S. will no longer be here,” said Jasim Hussain Jbara, Salahuddin Province’s head of national security, an appointee of the federal government.

“But we did ask them for tear gas, and they did not give it to us. They said they needed an order, and their reaction was very slow.” The chairman of the provincial council, Youssef Hammood, escaped the attack by fleeing out a back door.

He monitored the siege from a local command center where, he said, police and army officials requested American support. “The Americans didn’t do anything,” Mr. Hammood said. “We asked for their help, we asked for tear gas, but they didn’t do anything.”

An American military spokesman in Baghdad said Monday that the Iraqis had asked for helicopters to mount an air assault. “U.S. forces assessed that the roof would likely not support the weight of the helicopter and therefore did not attempt this high-risk mission,” the spokesman said in an e-mailed statement.

Tear gas was not available, but the Americans provided aerial surveillance and advised the local police commander, the statement said. The Iraqi Army and the police were once considered rife with sectarianism, a constellation of militias and roving death squads that answered to individual leaders motivated by loyalty to sect instead of nation. That situation has improved but has not been eradicated.

Officials in Tikrit who have viewed security cameras that captured the initial stages of the attack said evidence suggested that forces guarding the building might have been involved. “Some people helped them from the inside,” said Sabhan Chead, the deputy chairman of the provincial council, who was in Baghdad for a conference on the day of the assault.

Mr. Chead said that no one had been arrested and that he could not say whether security forces suspected of involvement were still on the job. “We suspect some people from the inside,” he said, “but are waiting for the investigation.” The details of the attack remained murky. Witnesses, survivors and officials overseeing the investigation offered conflicting accounts, and no one could agree on the number of attackers. Some said two, some said five or six, others said close to a dozen.

The Islamic State of Iraq, an umbrella organization affiliated with Al Qaeda, claimed responsibility, saying in a statement on a Web site that there were two attackers.

The assault also raised the question of how a new democracy plagued by violence should balance security with accessibility for the people it was trying to serve. Mr. Hammood said the building was “open for people, and hundreds come every day.” Still, he said, local officials worried that such an attack might occur, and had agreed on new security measures but had not yet found the money in the budget to pay for them. Mr. Hammood and others spoke from inside a secure complex of palaces and mansions that was once home to Saddam Hussein and his family.

The council will meet there until its destroyed headquarters in the center of town is rebuilt.

Mr. Mimur, the council member who is an ethnic Turkmen, was in his second-floor office with the door closed when the attack began. Like many politicians in Iraq, he was wearing a pistol.

“I will go to the Turkmen dog,” he said he heard one of the gunmen say.

Mr. Mimur said he grabbed his Browning pistol from his left hip, opened the door and fired off round after round until he ran out of bullets. “So I decided to save myself,” he said. “I had no choice but to jump from my window.”

Duraid Adnan contributed reporting from Baghdad and Tikrit, and an Iraqi employee of The New York Times from Tikrit.

vendredi 1 avril 2011

Turkey wants to use national currencies in trade with neighboring Iraq because this will make trade between the two countries more profitable, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has said. “We are already doing this with Iran and Russia. We can do it with Iraq too, there is no problem as far as we are concerned,” Erdoğan told reporters en route to Turkey from a visit to Iraq late on Wednesday.

Erdoğan said Turkey also wanted to lift visa requirement but added that the Iraqi side was cautious, because of security concerns. “We said let's at least lift visa requirement for holders of diplomatic passports. We will follow with total abolishment of visas as well,” he said.

The prime minister, who visited the Shiite province of Najaf and the Kurdish province of Arbil in addition to Baghdad during his visit, said the visit to Arbil was long overdue, although it was not easy to do it. “During the first two years of our rule, Turkey's policy was centered on [the situation of] Turkmens in Iraq. We showed great patience to transform our Turkmen-based policy into one that takes into consideration all of Iraq,” Erdoğan said. “I went to Arbil when we agreed that it was time for that.”

Erdoğan also said Turkey was involved in efforts to resolve a crisis in Bahrain, noting that all parties involved in the crisis have supported Turkish efforts. On Libya, he said France, which initiated coalition operations against Libya, was sidelined when NATO took full control of operations in the North African country. “We also insisted that the Arab League, the African Union and the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) should also join NATO [in determining policies for Libya]. This happened,” he said.